Shadows of the Apocalypse Part 1: Evil Never Dies
by The Shadow Incarnate
Summary: During an excursion to the Digital World, a terrible force annihilates most of Tokyo. Now, with the aid of humans and Digimon from around the world, the DigiDestined must find and face this mightiest of foes. This time, though, they may not survive at all
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

_I've been having these dreams lately. They always start the same. I'm hovering high over Tokyo, and I can hear the sounds of people going about their business. It's cold up there; the wind blows hard and the sheer altitude makes it even colder. I stay up there for a while, the sun beating down upon my neck as my skin tingles and goose flesh ripples down my arms from the cold winds. Nothing changes for a long time, and I begin to get bored. Then, without warning, a shadow appears out of nothing and blocks the sun. It isn't a real shadow; I can still feel the sun's warm rays and I can still see perfectly well. It's more like a dimming, where it's the world that is dimmed and darkened, not the sun itself. The air begins to grow chillier, and I shiver as condensation begins to make my breath visible. That in itself is odd, since I can still feel the warmth of the noonday sun. Then I realize that the shivering isn't just coming from the cold. I can feel something down there, prowling through Tokyo. It's evil, more evil than anything I've ever seen or heard of. I feel its diabolical intelligence reaching out, searching, questing for something. Its evil is boundless; its lust for death, destruction and, above all, vengeance, is beyond compare. Wrath fills it, sustains it, drives it onward. And yet, in with all those horrid feelings I can sense something else...eagerness? Yes, that's it. The thing, whatever it is, is close to finding that for which it looks. The object of vengeance is close, so close..._

_Its mind touches mine. There is a moment of hesitation, and then a malign joy fills its entire being as terror fills mine. I feel a great power gathering somewhere below me..._

_The world turns white. Fire explodes outward; I feel my body compressed by incredible pressure as searing, incinerating heat scorches the flesh from my bones. A mighty wind rushes toward me, bearing with it the detritus of a devastated city. A hail of glass shards, concrete chunks and dust clouds impacts my skin, shredding my flesh until nothing is left of me but my bones, and the sheer force of the wind shatters those into a thousand pieces. Even after this, however, I live. My mind still sees._

_Suddenly, I am far outside Tokyo, watching as black fire rises from the shattered ruins, seeming to touch the sky. Its fury is terrible, but it is nothing. The thing is still out there, deep in those dark flames. Its hatred knows no bounds, and it hungers for blood. Now, it feasts._

_The fires suddenly draw in upon themselves, collapsing down to a single point and then to nothing at all. Tokyo is no more. The land lies blackened for miles around; where once high buildings stood, now only tiny piles of rubble remain. The entire city has been seared from the surface of the earth, no creature left alive, and no stone left upon another. For a time, a breeze blows across the cracked, destroyed ground, howling through the desolate ruins._

_Then, from the point whence the explosion originated, shadow flows across the sky. But this is no ordinary shadow. This is darkness so deep that no light can pierce it, driven by an evil whose malice knows no bounds. In an instant, it swallows everything. The darkness surrounds me, and for a moment, I wonder if I am dead. But I know I am not, because if I were dead, I would not still feel it. It is still there, hunting for me. It has had some of its vengeance, but I still remain. I feel it coming closer, but I don't know what to do. I cannot move; fear paralyzes me. It is right in front of me. Then, from every direction at once, a voice reverberates in the darkness. It is a voice filled with power and hatred and wrath and malice, deep as the ocean and cold as the very heart of winter._

_"That which is dead shall never die_

_That which is eternal shall never perish_

_Fools they were to challenge me, but they will soon learn_

_Evil never dies._

_Courage and friendship, hope and light, their doom is nigh_

_And all in fire will eternal languish_

_Into everlasting night, they have begun their sojourn_

_Soon the shadow will rise_

_And I will see this world wrapped in fire_

_A vast and terrible roar fills my ears as the darkness reaches to consume me. The world ignites, hellish flames licking at my soul, devouring all that I am, and then I feel it near me. Hideous and immense, mighty and awful, its evil encompasses all that I am, mocking my pitiful being as it utterly destroys me. Then, as oblivion comes ever closer, the thing speaks again, and it seems that its voice reaches even into that emptiness, into that end of all as it says, "Vengeance shall be mine."_

_Normally, I'd dismiss the dream as nothing more than a nightmare, but it's kept coming back, night after night. I don't know what to do about it, because it doesn't seem that there's anything I _can _do. I keep thinking that if I knew who or what this thing in my dreams is, then I could do something about it. Now, though, I think that all I can do is wait. Nothing I do can stop it. But…for the first time, I'm scared. Whatever this thing is, it's more powerful than anything we've ever seen. And this time I wonder if we'll survive._

--Hikari "Kari" Kamiya

August 2, 2003


	2. Ch 1: The Coming of Evil

A/N: Arek, the glut of emotional information will be explained in a later chapter. To all readers, please read and review. If you don't...I will find you. You don't want that. (_Shakes head, good personality taking over_) Whew, sorry about that. Anyway, I do own Digimon. Yes, I said it. However, I do not own the Digimon franchise. There, now they can't sue me. To clarify, I own some Digimon, in particular the original characters (including the human ones). I also own the story. Don't steal them; my record's clean, and I'd hate to stain it with murder. I wish that I did own the franchise; I'd be as rich as a relatively successful movie star. But I'm not. That's what I get for not creating some ridiculously popular franchise like Pokemon or Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings or...why are you still reading this? Get to the story, for God's sake!

**The Coming of Evil**

_It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.  
David Brin_

"C'mon T.K., we're going to be late!" Nancy stifled a smile as she looked back at her son. He was attempting to walk down the sidewalk while carrying several dozen pounds of luggage in one hand and attempting to balance two rather large containers of food in the other. Nancy sighed in contentment. Such were the benefits of motherhood: one could always get the children to carry things. She herself had a comparatively small load. A rolling suitcase trundled along behind her and a jacket hung over her right arm. She had decided to dress smartly for this day; she wore a black, silken sleeveless top, a pair of khaki slacks and a pair of her best shoes. Oh, this was going to be a great day!

T.K. gave his mother an evil look. She was torturing him deliberately, he just knew it. Still, he was a dutiful son, so he would do as she said. He'd worry about revenge later. Of course, this was a very big day for her, seeing, as this would be her first trip to the Digital World. _How _Izzy could have come up with such an idea, T.K. couldn't fathom, but there it was: all the parents of the DigiDestined would enter the Digital World for the very first time today. T.K. supposed it would be okay; the Digital World had been relatively peaceful since MaloMyotismon's defeat and Oikawa's sacrifice eight months ago. No one had heard about a peep of trouble, not even Gennai. _I guess that's why Izzy thought it was safe._ Parents would be insufferable nuisances under any other circumstances. _Not that they're not already._

Suddenly, T.K. felt the food containers wobble dangerously. Quickly, T.K. moved his hand underneath them, trying to maintain its balance. He failed. As though it were in slow motion T.K. watched as the top container swayed perilously on the brink, and then began to fall. He closed his eyes and grimaced, certain that the next sound he heard would be food splattering over the concrete beneath him.

"Got it!"

T.K. opened his eyes. Matt stood in front of him, the plastic container held safely in his hands. His brother had a cocky grin on his face.

"Oh, man, thanks Matt! You saved my butt."

Matt's grin widened a bit. "Yep, I sure did." Matt turned around. "Hi, Mom!"

T.K. saw his mother turn around, but he was distracted when someone laid a strong hand on his shoulder. T.K. turned his head to see his father standing beside him. T.K. smiled.

"Hey, Dad!"

"Hello, son. I'd give you a hug, but you'd probably just fall over."

"No kidding," T.K. said, chuckling.

His mirth was stolen a moment later when he heard his mother say, "Hiroaki."

Nancy was looking at her ex-husband. Anyone else would say that her face showed no emotion; T.K. and Matt knew the signs, though. The slight, almost invisible tightening of the muscles at the sides of her mouth, the tiny twitches around her eyes; they each spoke volumes to anyone who could read the signs of her distaste.

Hiroaki himself simply nodded and replied, "Nancy."

Silence settled for a few moments, and into it Matt said, "You promised, remember?"

"I remember, son," said Nancy. "The Kamiya house is just up the way, isn't it, T.K.?" Without waiting for an answer, she spun on her heel and continued walking.

* * *

The thing watched the little spat with delight. Any strife within the brats' families was simply icing on the cake, as far as it was concerned. The more pain and suffering they endured was justly deserved, the thing thought. Admittedly, though, it was rather sad that they couldn't enjoy this day a bit more.

Before they died.

The thing watched as the four humans trudged up toward yet another of those accursed monstrosities of concrete and steel. Oh, how it wished to destroy them, to slaughter them, to disembowel them slowly over the course of three days and then melt the flesh from their bodies an inch at a time. But no, it couldn't, not until they were all there. Vengeance could wait until the opportune moment.

"Here now, wha'd'ya think yer doin'?"

Yet another annoyance. The thing slowly turned toward the speaker, and the beggar slowly came into view. Haggard, prematurely aged, the man wore a long overcoat that hung down to his knees. Beneath that, he wore a tattered shirt that seemed two sizes too big for him. The same went for the raggedy, torn jeans. The only things on the beggar that seemed to fit (aside from the massive beard hanging halfway down his chest) were the boots on his feet. The thing saw the man's reaction. It knew what the pathetic human would see: a young human boy wearing well-fitted jeans and a navy t-shirt over a white turtleneck. The boy's hair, a becoming dirty blond, waved in the wind. His brown Merrill's looked new, with not a single scuff. That was all normal, and nothing the old beggar had not seen before. But the eyes...there was nothing human about the eyes. The eyes contained no pupils, no irises, nor even any whites. Flames roared in those sockets, black flames from the bowels of some unholy, god-forsaken place. The beggar saw in those eyes an evil more profound than anything it had ever imagined.

The beggar began backing up, managing to get a few feet before he fell to the ground. He scrambled backward on hands and knees, trying desperately to get away from the monster in boy's skin, yet unable to look away. One eye always remained on the boy as the beggar ran into piles of trash and garbage cans. So great was the old man's terror that he didn't notice when his hand fell on a piece of broken glass. He continued his desperate scramble, blood flowing in copious amounts from the wound. Finally, the beggar struck a fence. In horror, he looked behind him, hoping against hope that he had simply imagined the barrier. He hadn't. The beggar looked back.

The boy loomed over him. There in the alley, where the light of the sun never touched, darkness loomed around the boy, licking at the concrete walls around it, sending out feelers as though testing some invisible bounds. Blackness twisted around the boy's body, and the boy lifted his hand as though stroking it. A deep, reverberating noise echoed around the beggar. It took a moment for the beggar to realize that the sound was laughter.

"Did you think you could ever escape us?" The voice rumbled like the growl of some demonic beast. There were many layers to it, creating the effect of many voices speaking as one. The moment it uttered those words, all the light seemed to go out of the world, as though the thing (the beggar didn't even think of it as a boy anymore) had sucked it out of the very air. The words awoke in the beggar all manner of forgotten memories and suppressed nightmares. Whispers echoed in his mind: hideous intimations of violence and bloodlust flitted around the edges of his thoughts, driving him toward madness. The beggar thrashed on the ground, trying to remove the voices.

The thing watched the old man, contempt playing across its face. The complete weakness of the humans astonished it to no end. _How these pathetic things ever managed to defeat us, we will never know_. But their weakness gave the thing an interesting option.

"Look upon us, human."

The old man stopped floundering. He tried with all his might not to, but his will was no match for the thing standing before him, and so his head turned of its own accord toward the thing and met its eyes. Peripherally, the man was aware of the boy raising his hand and turning the palm to face him, but the eyes consumed him. Malignant darkness radiated from those eyes, and a will so much stronger than his own crashed into the man.

The thing watched in mad glee. The beggar's face twisted in pain as he tried hopelessly to fight off the intrusion, but it was hopeless. The thing felt its will overrun the man's mind as the man stopped thrashing. Black eyes stared hollowly at the boy. The old man's face became totally blank, showing no expression whatsoever. The thing exerted its will. The man stood up.

Examining its work, the boy smiled in satisfaction. This was the first time it had used the Seed of Darkness technique. It seemed that it had the same effect on humans that it did on Digimon. But it had other business with which to deal.

"Remain here and be silent until we return," the boy said. The beggar bowed, and the boy turned away, a smile on his face, and walked back to the alley's entrance.

_Aaaahhh._ They were all there. There were more human presences than the thing had expected, but many of the presences felt similar. That meant that some of the extra presences were familial relations. This was too good to be true! The boy quickly looked at his watch. _Hmm, that's odd_. The watch said it had been twenty minutes since the beggar interrupted him. Well, it didn't matter; the Seed of Darkness attack must have required a longer time to transubstantiate the human than he'd thought.

The boy walked out of the alley, stopping at the edge of the sidewalk. He raised his arms over his head, ignoring the stares of the people driving along in front of him. A ball of black fire ignited between his upraised palms. The thing poured its power into the ball of fire, finally determining it to be ready. The boy lowered his left arm as the ball of fire shifted to hover over the right index finger.

"Wrath of the Fallen One!"

* * *

Cody had been the last one to arrive. Consequently, he was also the least prepared to leave. When he arrived at the Kamiyas', he had been carrying in his free arm the things he hadn't had time to pack. Thankfully, everyone was patient with him, seeing how they were still attempting to get everything organized before they left. Finally, though, everything had been packed away, everyone was packed as close to the Kamiyas' computer as they could get, and there was not a single person who was not desperate to get _out_ of there. Having twelve families in a single apartment was definitely _not_ a smart thing to do.

The only person missing there was Cody's mother, who had refused to come along. She wouldn't tell Cody _why_, but he was smart enough to figure it out for himself. The Digital World had consumed his father's attentions, just as it had her son's. She saw it as a menace, and the only reason she had allowed Cody to come along was that, as his grandfather had told her, he'd just go without her permission.

His grandfather was there, though. He stood beside Cody, looking almost like a little kid on his way to a theme park. Cody smiled when he saw that. It was good to know that someone else was as excited as he was.

Cody looked at the shuffle of people and bags in front of him, but he looked back at his grandfather when he felt a hand settle on his shoulder. His grandfather had managed to school his features into a small smile as he looked down on Cody.

"This is a great day, Cody. I wish your father could be here to see it."

Cody nodded solemnly. "Yeah, me too, Grandpa. He would've loved it. I just wish-"

"Your mother made her choice, and she had good, personal reasons for it." Grandpa leaned down a little bit. "She must come to her own decisions, Cody. When she hears of this, she will come around, so don't be worried. I'm not."

"You're not?"

"Heavens, no," Grandpa chuckled. "Your mother is a smart woman. She is simply coming to terms with thi-"

"Okay, guys! Are you ready?" Izzy's voice sounded somewhat muffled from his position near the front of the multitude. Cody called out his assent and moved to stand behind his grandfather, making him the person farthest from the computer. He heard some scuffling coming from the front of the group, and a loud "Ouch!" rang out as someone's toes were violated. After a moment, though, the scuffling and shifting ended. Ken should have been directly in front of the computer.

"Okay, Cody, we're ready up here," Izzy said. "Are you ready back there?"

"Ready!"

"Good. On the count of three, open the portal. One, two, three!"

Cody shouted, "Digi-port open!" At the same time, he heard Ken cry the same words from the front of the group. Blinding white light surged from the computer screen as the portal opened. In the same instant, an identical brilliance burst from the screen of Cody's D-3. The light from the two screens enveloped the gathered families of the DigiDestined and pulled them into the computer screen and through the portal. An instant later, Cody felt a familiar jerk as the portal pulled him through.

For a moment, he felt an odd sensation: heat, perhaps. Whatever it was, it vanished almost instantly. His universe at once compressed him into infinite smallness and expanded beyond his comprehension. Kaleidoscopic color whirled around him as existence sharpened into a tunnel around Cody, time seeming to have no meaning as it did so. A point of light quickly expanded to fill his vision, and Cody experienced a moment of vertigo as he hung on the edge between the void and the Digital World.

Suddenly, the Digital World popped into being, and Cody was falling. Luckily, his fall was quickly broken by several unidentifiable bodies. He heard grunts, groans and curses underneath him, and then Cody was quickly shoved aside as the people around him attempted to untangle themselves.

For several minutes, there was quite a lot of arguing and complaing, insults and accusations flying around willy-nilly with the occasional yell thrown in. Finally, however, everyone managed to become situated. It was at that moment that Davis, his face covered in scratches, said, "Okay, whose idea was it to bring the cat along?"

* * *

The boy floated through the furious maelstrom of fire, completely ignoring the terrible heat of the black fires raging around him. He floated to the place where the alley had been. The beggar remained where the thing had left him, his black eyes continuing to stare out at nothing. The thing smiled. The personal vengeance was acheived. Now, the time for retribution for all mankind had come.

The shadow rose.


	3. Ch 2: The War Begins

**The War Begins**

_Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter._

--Sir Winston Churchill

Cody snickered. Davis had three long, thin scratches running down his right cheek. They didn't look like anything serious; Cody had seen both Kari and Tai with nearly identical scratches that disappeared in days.

Davis didn't see it quite that way. Without ado, he picked up the vile perpetrator by the scruff of her neck and handed her to Mr. Kamiya. He grumbled under his breath, muttering about evil cats and their terrible crimes, such as robbing him of his perfect looks for several days. Ken smiled when heard the mutters.

"C'mon, Davis, you'll be fine in a few days," he said, patting his friend on the shoulder.

"Yeah, well, if that cat gets anywhere near me, we'll be eating roast Meko."

"Why don't you go tell that to Kari," Ken said.

"I'd rather kiss a bug," said Davis. Something bumped into his leg, and Davis looked down. Wormon walked past him and turned around, looking up at Davis with a star-struck look. It seemed that he attempted to pucker his lips. He failed miserably, seeing as he didn't have any.

"Well, I'm game if you are," said Wormon.

Davis stalked off. Ken clapped his hand over his mouth, doubling over in silent laughter. Cody chuckled silently. Those two would never quit.

Cody heard his name, and he turned around. He spotted his grandfather's foot sticking out from under a small mountain of luggage. Cody smiled as he went over to the mound. He heard muffled noises coming from beneath the mound, but he couldn't decipher anything more than the word, "out!" Cody shifted the various pieces of luggage about, trying to unearth his grandfather. A hand appeared underneath the tumble, then the other, and then Chikara's face appeared. Cody stared at him for a moment, his lips pressed together to keep a smile from his face. Chikara scowled at him and said, "Well, are you going to get me out?" Cody laughed softly and assured his grandfather that he would. In a few moments, Chikara was free. Cody helped him up.

As his grandfather began to brush himself off, Cody heard a shout, and he turned so fast that a small pop came from his neck. He knew that voice. Cody pushed through the throng of people surrounding him. Bounding through the forest was a small yellow form, and as it came closer, it resolved into Armadillomon. Cody called out to him. Armadillomon changed his course and leaped into Cody's arms. Cody laughed. The world was right.

* * *

Far away, a boy slept in his room. It wasn't a large room, and it was made smaller by its cluttered, messy state. In the boy's defense, however, the room was not messy because of his lack of interest in the room's appearance, but rather because of a lack of space. A bookshelf covered most of one wall; only the door was left uncovered. The shelves reached almost to the ceiling, and if the room had not been almost completely dark, one would have been able to read the titles of the several hundred books contained therein. Among them were numbered Sun Tzu's _The Art of War_, von Clausewitz's _On War_, Plato's _Republic_, and many other books dealing with philosophy and the social and physical sciences, along with many biographies. Those who entered that room for the first time were astonished at the high level of those books. However, the boy would be the first to admit that he had never actually finished most of them.

The rest of his room was quite normal; a desk with a laptop, a chest of drawers, a television, and two small closets, one full and one empty, were also present. A digital clock on the desk spread a soft blue glow over the room. It illuminated the boy, who lay sprawled out on his bed. He had a blindfold on; that damned clock was so bright that it kept him awake. None of that was abnormal. In fact, one might say that it was exquisitely normal.

A large gear-shaped creature lay on the bed beside the boy, taking up all of one side of the bed. It consisted of one large gear, the teeth of which poked out about half a foot. The middle of the gear was solid and slightly rounded, looking like a small dome. A large line divided the two halves of the gear; two reddish orange eyes, the same color as the dome, looked out, though now they were closed in sleep. A jagged gape served for a mouth. Two smaller gears attached near the mouth acted as hands.

"Josh, wake up!" The voice came from beyond the door, which rattled as the person behind it began beating on it. Josh Campbell stirred in his sleep, and then turned over. The door opened. A man in fatigues walked through and switched one the lights.

"Josh, I need you to wake up right NOW!" The shout finally woke the boy. He sat up and groaned, pulling the blindfold up. Eyes of deep blue looked out. Most of Josh's black locks tumbled down over his forehead; the rest stuck out at odd angles. He looked over at the clock.

"Dad, it's past midnight." Josh squinted up at his father.

"I know, but there's something you need to see. Bring Solarmon with you." The man walked out. Josh dropped his head into his hands and rubbed his eyes. He shook his head and blinked a few times until he decided he was awake. A book lay on the floor in front of him. Josh picked it up and tossed it behind him.

_Plunk._

Solarmon shot up. "Hujjuba, hujjuba, hujjuba, who's there, who's there, are we under attack?" Solarmon turned back and forth, searching for whatever woke him.

"Oh, and here I was thinking you could sleep through a war. Guess I was wrong," Josh said.

Solarmon glared daggers at Josh's back. "I thought we agreed never to wake me up like that. Ever."

Josh rolled his eyes. "Last time you nearly slept through the final battle with Keromon."

Solarmon considered. "Good point. Why'd you wake me up in the first place?"

Josh shrugged. "There's something Dad wants to show us."

Solarmon looked at the clock. "At midnight."

"Yep. We better get going; otherwise we'll be the ones who go out on the next deployment."

Josh stood up and walked into the hall, Solarmon following behind. Solarmon was just a bit too large to fit through the door, and was forced to turn slightly to pass through. The same was true in the hall. The Digimon had become accustomed to it, and now he traveled through most doors on his side if he didn't consciously think not to. It was the burden of being wide in a thin world. The rest of the house was not quite so Lilliputian, and Solarmon had quite enough room in which to maneuver. The living room, though not huge, seemed cavernous, and, after the kitchen, Solarmon liked it the best of all the rooms in the house, but they didn't stay there. Solarmon saw something on the television that looked interesting. It was muted, though, and anyway, they were headed for the Colonel's study.

Like any good study, it was rather large. Books lined every wall; a desk sat in the middle of the room, measuring eight by four feet. A flat screen monitor illuminated a patch of wall behind the desk. Josh's father walked up to the desk and turned the monitor toward Josh and Solarmon. A video media window dominated most of the screen, showing a normal cityscape. It was daylight on the screen.

"This is a video feed from atop a building just outside Tokyo. The feed is automatically saved on servers outside of Japan for use as a supplement to outside meteorological studies. The camera is pointed in the direction of Odaiba. It shows the city as it was a little bit over an hour ago," said Josh's father. He clicked play. "Now watch." Nothing happened for a few minutes save for a few birds flying by. Solarmon began to grow bored.

The cityscape vanished within a blinding flash of white light. A great ball of fire sprang up and formed into an enormous mushroom. In shock, Solarmon saw a circular ripple flash across the ground. The shockwave leveled the dozens of small buildings in its path, and the camera shook violently as it struck the larger building. Mighty winds rushed along behind the wave front and scoured the earth clean of everything else, destroying the camera as well. Static showed on the screen.

Josh's father opened another window similar to the first. "This next feed was filmed from a building that wasn't destroyed by that blast."

Solarmon saw the wave front and windblast approach the camera, but this time they only shook the camera violently. The fireball rose up, vast and terrible, and after many seconds, it vanished, but the mushroom cloud continued to rise. Suddenly, strangely, Solarmon saw what looked like a shock wave move not away from the epicenter, but toward it. But it wasn't a shockwave. It was a black wave moving toward the epicenter of the blast with amazing speed. Two more waves followed the first.

Then came the final horror. A dome of black fire rose on the horizon until it was a perfect half-sphere. The fiery dome grew larger. Miles high and miles wide, it encompassed a good part of the city. It kept on growing, growing, until Solarmon wondered if it would ever stop.

Then it was gone. It didn't contract, didn't disperse in a fiery blast of power. It was simply gone.

The video ended there. Josh's father closed the window and turned back to his son. Josh simply stood there, looking at the blank monitor. He swallowed.

"Dad, please tell me that was just a trailer for a new movie."

His father snorted. "I already told you that it wasn't. Besides, you already know that it's real, don't you?"

Josh licked his lips. "I…it just…it just can't be…." His eyes flicked back and forth as though looking for something to deny what his eyes had seen.

Solarmon, though just as shocked as his partner, said, "Colonel, that wasn't a nuclear weapon. I mean, the first part might have been, but I'm pretty sure humans don't have a weapon like that dome of fire."

Josh's father looked at Solarmon. "We don't. That's why I showed this to you: I think this was done by a Digimon."

Josh looked back at his father. "It might have been," he said, nodding slightly. "There are a very few Digimon strong enough to do this."

"And," said his father, "we didn't detect anyone launching a missile before this happened."

Josh hung his head in thought. "Dad, I think you need to get on the phone with the general. He owes you a favor, doesn't he?"

Josh's father furrowed his eyebrows. "Yes, why?"

Certain in his plan now, Josh's voice gained confidence. "Tell him to get a plane ready to go to Okinawa." He smiled. "I'm going to muster the troops."

"Okay," his father said, smiling.

Josh and Solarmon left the study then. The war had begun, and there was much work to be done.

* * *

They were a pathetic lot. They had bodies that seemed to be made of living shadows. Their faces had neither a mouth nor a nose, but their eyes covered the upper half of their faces. When they walked they stooped, but in the water, their webbed hands and feet made them as agile as any fish.

Daemon hated them. He hated this universe. It was all well and good being evil, but even dark lords despaired when deprived of even color. Daemon hated the light and those who fought for it, but he was a creation of shadow. Without light, without a balance to his darkness, he could not fulfill his purpose. He was an instrument of that balance, and he was in a universe where darkness reigned.

He would have been content with that if he had brought about the darkness, but he hadn't. And so he stood atop a gray cliff, watching as a great blackness came ever closer, eclipsing the gray swells of the Dark Ocean.

Daemon's rage grew, and his attendants shrank away as his body began to give off heat. Grass around him curled and crackled, exploding into flame. The attendants quailed, but they dared not flee.

"Tell those on the beach to move up to the cliff." Daemon's voice was soft, but it carried an undertone of menace. He heard a gulp behind him. Another being babbled its assent, but Daemon barely heard it. His attention had already turned back to the sea. The shadowy mass slowly came closer, and Daemon could finally make out the individual creatures making up the horde. Their numbers were vast, as he'd known they would be. Dragomon would never countenance a challenge to his rule.

That this war had happened infuriated Daemon. For all his boasts to the DigiDestined, Daemon hadn't the power to open a gate to the Digital World. He had tried; oh, how he had tried! A thousand attempts, all for nothing. Again, he tried; he reached for the darkness within him. As he reached, he widened his eyes and _looked_at the world around him. Lines of dark energy overlaid everything, forming into patterns that defined the nature of everything in this world. Complexity overlaid complexity; the more complex the pattern, the more complex the thing was. The grey water was the least complex, the army within it the most. Daemon looked deeper. The individual patterns disappeared, and in their places appeared dark lines of connections. These lines showed the emotional connections between the living entities within this world. Surprisingly, Daemon saw several lines running from his army to the horde, and vice-versa. He filed away the information; it might prove useful later.

Daemon exercised the power available only to the mightiest of Digimon. He _looked_ deeper, until the structure of reality became visible to him. Every mind interpreted the structure differently: in Daemon's eyes, shifting black lines crisscrossed his vision, forming into a three dimensional grid. The grid lines nearest Daemon shifted and warped around him, with the effect decreasing with distance. He could reach out and touch those warped lines, manipulating them to conform the world around him to his will. Daemon did so then.

The grid lines near him shifted. A human mathematician would have called the shape a three dimensional diagrammatic depiction of a four dimensional hypercube; Daemon called it "a cube within a cube." The smaller box inside the larger pierced the boundaries of the universe, allowing Daemon to create a bridge to other worlds, but to do so, he must needs force his power into the smaller box….

A blast of pure light and power rebuffed him when he did, and the tesseract space before him collapsed as some force knocked Daemon's senses back to the "real" world. The rage flared in him again. That should not have happened; never had his power failed to open a gate. At least, it hadn't before he had met those DigiDestined. Daemon understood that some barrier was keeping him from both the Digital World and the human world. He simply could not understand how such a barrier had come into being. Such a thing had never before existed, and though Daemon knew the Sovereigns had the power to create this sort of thing, they could not create a barrier that selectively denied entrance to some beings.

And they wouldn't make a non-selective barrier, he knew. They needed their precious DigiDestined too much.

A deep rumble turned Daemon's attentions back to immediate matters. The great host began moving forward again, finally making landfall. The soldiers carried harpoon-like javelins, the customary weapons of their world. Daemon sneered at them as they came. His soldiers were armed with primitive bows and spears, far more effective on land than those harpoons. Dragomon obviously expected to win by sheer numbers rather than strategic superiority.

_Time to whittle down those numbers_, thought Daemon. He raised his hands, pointing them at the soldiers on the beach, and cried, "Evil Inferno!"

The war was on.

* * *

The dark lord brooded on his throne. He was weak, weaker than he had ever been, and at a time when he needed his power more than ever before. The humans, idiotic though they were, would soon realize the inhuman nature of his attack. They would bring all their considerable power to bear on him. Those other DigiDestined would undoubtedly make an appearance as well. He had not accounted for them; he would have to modify his plans. At least he had disposed of the strongest of them, the ones most likely to threaten him.

Oh yes, _those _DigiDestined. _Four times they defeated us, but we have learned from our mistakes_, he thought. The Digi-fools had rarely been beaten in open combat, and fate always intervened when they had. The answer was blindingly obvious: take them by surprise and destroy them before they had any hope to counter. If that was not possible, wear them down with constant attacks until they were to tired to move, let alone retaliate, and _then_ destroy them. He had tried that, out there in the void. Fate intervened again, and they lived while he, the ultimate evil, was reduced to almost nothing.

"There is no light in the void. Only shadows…and madness."

The man before the throne said nothing, and would not. He was a servant, his mind overwhelmed by a piece of the dark lord's own being. Such a wondrous power, the Seed of Darkness, one he had never dreamed of before the unification.

The dark lord descended suddenly from his throne. He stalked past the servant, who stood mute, awaiting the master's orders. Shadows wrapped around the dark lord, billowing like smoke. Soon, the chamber was utterly dark. But the dark lord still saw.

_Open the gate_, he thought, and like an arrow, the blip of cognition flashed to the old man. The former beggar began walking and left through the door behind the throne. The dark lord continued. Before him loomed the great stone doors of his throne room. In the blackness of the dark lord's power, they were invisible, but the dark lord loosed a whip of power toward them. The doors grated on the stone floor and the hinges groaned as though laden with the weight of countless ages.

The dark lord passed through into a great hall. It was completely empty save for torch brackets lining the walls. No adornments graced those walls. They were no more than flat grey slabs of stone rising a hundred feet into the air. The same grey stone made up the ceiling, different from the walls only in that the ceiling arched. It looked impossible; architecturally speaking, the ceiling was too large to support itself. Then again, neither the ceiling nor the walls were actually made of stone.

Light flared in the room as the dark lord loosed a few threads of his power. The torches burst into flame, but the light they gave was not normal. It was a "dark light," if such a thing existed. The black flames gave no hint of warmth, and did not illuminate in the conventional sense. Whatever the "light" touched shone dully, without the sheen that normal light gave.

The dark lord did not care. The comfort of servants and soldiers concerned him little. They should consider themselves lucky to be given any light at all. He was the shadow incarnate; they were lucky they still had their lives.

Three other doors led out of the grand hall, each one located in the middle of its respective wall. The dark lord went through the door on his right and entered a corridor as utilitarian as the great hall. No brackets lined its walls, and thus no torches gave it light. The corridor grew black as the dark lord went further from the great hall until finally no light at all reached the corridor.

The dark lord walked on, ignoring the small splashes as he stepped in stagnant pools of water. The cold liquid seeped through the sneakers, soaking the socks beneath, but the dark lord felt nothing. He was beyond such mortal concerns.

As he walked, a wicked smile grew on his face.

The corridor widened, rows of prison cells appearing on each side. The dark lord strode past the empty cells, walking perhaps two hundred feet before stopping before a seemingly random cell. He looked through the bars into the shadows. The occupant cringed away, trying to make itself appear smaller in a vain attempt to avoid attention.

"Are you comfortable, old friend? Do you find your accommodations…suitable?" The dark lord tilted his head, waiting. Soft mutters and bestial whimpers reached through the bars.

"We cannot hear you, old friend. Speak louder."

With a roar, the thing inside rushed forward, slamming itself into the bars. It growled insensibilities, reaching for the dark lord. The dark lord raised a hand. The thing inside froze, unable to even blink. The dark lord leaned forward. He felt the anger drain away from the prisoner in a flash as fear rose up like an ocean wave.

The prisoner began to tremble; an incredible feat, considering that it was held in the dark lord's grasp. The dark lord smiled.

"That was foolishly done, old friend," said the dark lord. The fear in the prisoner's eyes sent a thrill down the dark lord's spine. "You know the consequences of attacking us." With a soft chuckle the dark lord lowered his hand, splaying his fingers in the prisoner's direction. Dark lightning thundered from his hand and struck the prisoner. A wail of agony came from its mouth, a high, thin scream that continued on and on...

The lightning cut off as the dark lord lowered his hand. He listened for a moment to the prisoner's gasp of pain, reveling in the sound of the gasps as the prisoner tried to find its breath. He heard it whimper a few times. Beautiful.

"Sleep, old friend. We shall talk again." The dark lord turned away and continued walking down the prison block. He didn't miss the tear that trickled down the prisoners face when he left.

The cell block ended not far beyond that prisoner's cell. Steel doors, spaced as much as a hundred feet apart, took the place of barred cells. Ten feet high and just as wide, with massive rivets embedded along the edge, it didn't seem as if anything short of a nuclear weapon (and perhaps not even that) could hope to move them. To the left of the dark lord, one of the doors swung open on silent hinges as smoothly as could be. He passed through the monstrous doorway to the room beyond. Seemingly darker than the stygian hall outside, the large room was completely empty save for one thing: at the far wall stood a prisoner shackled and chained. A young human man, he surely could not have attained adulthood long ago. Pale skinned with dark brown, nearly black hair, he was rather overweight. In a navy T-shirt, jeans and glasses, with his head drooping, he could have been asleep. On his feet he bore the tattered remains of what had been a nice pair of shoes. The dark lord had found him roaming around Shibuya, stunned and confused after the terrible explosion that nearly claimed his life. The cuts on his face and arms were a testament to the flying debris he had encountered.

"Oh drat, the dark lord's back." The young man had had a deep voice once, but dehydration had made it higher and scratchier. The dark lord tilted his head, curious.

"You seem to have remarkable powers of clairvoyance, boy."

"Oh no no no, my dear dark lord. Simple deduction, really. After all, who else could make a room go ice cold except a dark lord?" said the boy, chuckling.

The dark lord smiled. It wasn't often he had such an engaging prisoner.

"You seem to know much about dark lords. Please, go ahead and expound upon the subject."

"Really? Well, they tend to be sadistic, sociopathic megalomaniacs with tremendous powers and a tendency for mass-murder. Oh, and they're pure evil."

The dark lord laughed at that. "It seems you know us well, human."

The young man raised his head, his brow furrowed. "Us?"

"We are a dark lord, are we not?" said the dark lord.

The prisoner dropped his head and groaned slightly. Almost as an aside, he said, "Oh shit, he's got a disassociative personality too. I'm screwed."

The dark lord's smile "Oh, we don't think you are. We have plans for you. You may even enjoy what is going to happen to you."

The boy raised his head again, this time with a look of anger on his face. "Did I mention that people like you tend to be totally fucking insane?" He gasped in pain as another cut appeared on his cheek. The dark lord simply watched the prisoner as the young man breathed through clenched teeth, hissing like a snake. After a moment, the eyes, flashing with anger, snapped back to the dark lord.

"Don't like hearing the truth, huh? Is that it? You'd have to be insane to slaughter millions of innocent people, you know that, don't you?"

"Innocent?" said the dark lord softly. "Oh no, boy. Not innocent. There are no innocents in this world. Each and every one of you miserable creatures is guilty. You go happily about your lives, walking about in this sunlit paradise given to you, never dreaming of the realms of torment and despair that exist beyond your puny reality. You never imagine the suffering of those you helped banish to those depths. But now, you will suffer. Humanity will know pain such as it has never before conceived in its blackest nightmares. And _you_, boy, will be our instrument of destruction."

The prisoner looked at the dark lord, realization dawning in his eyes. "I've heard a rant like this before."

"We are glad you remember us, boy," said the dark lord, laughing maniacally. He held up his palm, a ball of black fire appearing therein. In the sudden illumination, the prisoner beheld the body of the human in which the dark lord dwelt. His lips quivered as he looked into those eyes of flame, into the terrible malignancy of the darkest of evils.

"Look upon us, boy. We are the darkness incarnate, power given flesh. We are the end of all things, and now we will finish what we began so long ago, when we were called Apocalymon."

* * *

Author's Notes--Whew, finally done with that. For those of you who waited, I'm sorry. Life intervened. Now, this chapter was meant to a) put the Digidestined with their Digimon b)introduce some new good guys c) reveal the bad guys. I'm sorry if you don't like the way I focused on the Odaiba kids very much, but they were unnecessary for the plot at this point. I'm surprised at the way no one has asked about Cody's mother who, after all, was still _in_ the real world when the Wrath of the Fallen One was unleashed. Her fate will be revealed later. And no, I didn't put Daemon in because he's such a darkly cool character; he has a part to play.

The reason for Apocalymon's use of the plural form in reference to himself will be revealed. Some might already be able to guess it.

As always, PLEASE REVIEW. PLEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAASE!! After all, I can't make this better if you don't tell me what I did wrong.


	4. Ch 3: Lost and Hurt

**Lost and Hurt**

_Whenever evil befalls us, we ought to ask, after the first suffering, how we can turn it into good…._

--Leigh Hunt

She wants to sleep, but she can't. She is hurt, and she knows it. She just can't do anything about it. That being so, she takes stock of herself again. The right side of her face is red and cracked from the heat of the inferno. Dozens of tiny cuts mar the curves of her head, but the blood doesn't flow freely from them anymore. At least, it doesn't flow _as_ freely. If she moves her head, the scabs break open, and her lifeblood oozes out. But she doesn't move her head; it hurts too much. The headache is maddening. Terribly, horribly painful, it is the worst she has ever felt in her life. _Even worse than a hangover, _she thinks. The bit of humor does not cheer her, though. Having a concussion is nothing over which to laugh. She is not a doctor, but it is intuitively obvious that the longer the concussion's symptoms last, the worse it is. Of course, she does not actually know how long a concussion lasts…or maybe she does. Her mind is in something of a jumble; some of her memories from childhood are juxtaposed with memories of the last few days. She thinks that is a bad thing, but she cannot be sure. With her mind the way it is, she is not sure if her knowledge is real or not. In fact, she is not sure whether _reality_ is real.

A piece of concrete shifts, and she cries out as a lightning bolt of pain shoots up her arm. Yes, this is reality, or at least a very good facsimile of it. Tears form at the edges of her eyes, leaving muddy tracks as they slowly make their way down the side of her face. The agony slowly fades away as she becomes used to the new position. The arm is obviously broken, but it is not the most troubling injury. From her left shoulder protrudes a long, rusted metal pylon coated with dried blood. She does not move her head to see the true severity of the damage, but her blouse, once wet with blood, sticks to her skin. The blood is not wet _now_, of course; it has been too long since she was hurt. She is not sure whether she is in shock or if her system has been flooded with endorphins. It doesn't really matter, she supposes. It is unlikely that she will be rescued. That thought perplexes her for a moment. To her, it seems counterintuitive to think that there will not be any attempted rescue. After all, those Americans had had some buildings collapse, and they had not stopped looking for months; why would the Japanese do any less?

Still, the thought remains. She wishes she could remember what happened. It is maddening, not knowing _why _she is laying in the middle of a collapsed building with a rusty piece of metal sticking out of her shoulder.

"It really is annoying, isn't it?"

Above her and to her right, a large piece of concrete juts out of the tangle of wires and debris. Before, her delirium-raddled had thought it an odd thing, to be positioned so oddly. Now, it truly is an odd sight considering that a man perches on it, grinning like the Cheshire cat.

Shocked, she shakes her head despite the pain. "It's not possible," she whispers.

"Of course it's impossible, Ayame," Hiroki says. "I'm dead, aren't I?"

"No…."

"I'm not? Oh dear, that puts a kink in things, doesn't it?

"What—"

"You know, you really should stop shaking your head. Any more and those scabs are going to break open. You don't need to lose any more blood than you already have."

Ayame stops moving.

"Good. Look, your headache's going away, isn't it. Much better than having that terrible throbbing going 'round and 'round inside your skull, I think," says Hiroki, who still wears that cat-like grin.

This is too complicated, Ayame thinks. "Why are you here?"

Hiroki cocks his head. "Isn't it obvious? You're insane."

Ayame furrows her brows.

Hiroki rolls his eyes. "Do I have to explain everything? You have a concussion, and you've lost so much blood that you're delirious. You're injured, hungry, and lonely, so naturally your mind conjured up someone who could at least help you cope with the loneliness. So, here I am!"

For a moment, Ayame says nothing, considering her reply. Then she says, "Does that mean I'm talking to myself?"

"Yep."

"Oh. I don't suppose you know how this happened, then?"

"Well it's rather obvious, isn't it? You're in a collapsed building; therefore, something exploded. You just had the bad luck to get caught in it."

"I was hoping for something a little more concrete than that," says Ayame, her speech breathy from exhaustion. She glances over at her right arm. "No pun intended," she adds.

"Sorry I can't help hon. Remember, I'm just a figment of your imagination; I don't have any more idea what happened than you do."

Ayame closes her eyes, chuckling softly. "Never thought I'd be talking to a figment."

"You and me both, kid."

They are silent for a few minutes. Ayame alternately opens and closes her eyes and moves her tongue around in her mouth, trying to get more moisture. Hiroki just looks at their surroundings, completely ignoring the piece of metal that should be impaling his midsection. Ayame finds the sight an odd one, but Hiroki is a figment, so it isn't too disturbing. Disturbing. The last week of her life has been disturbing. Perhaps she should have gone with Cody.

"You really should have."

Ayame looks at Hiroki. "Should have what?"

"Gone with Cody. All his friends' parents went. Besides, it would have been good for you."

She snorts. "How could going to that…_place_ be good for me? After you…." She pauses.

His smile widening minutely, Hiroki leans in. "After I what, Ayame?"

The old, deep pain grips her heart, squeezing like a vice. Tears well up in her eyes and stream down her face. Water and dust mix; muddy tracks run down her cheeks. Soon they will congeal into dirt. She doesn't care. She simply whispers, "You died."

"Bah! That has nothing to do with it," says Hiroki, quickly leaning back. "Admit it, Ayame, you're jealous and always have been."

"What are you talking about?"

"You hate it when people _you_ love have feelings for something else. First, it was your parents' affection for your siblings, and then it was me with the Digital World. You just can't understand why people who love you can devote such passion to something other than you." Hiroki's face twists into a mocking, childish pout. "Poor, poor Ayame, nobody loves her, nobody cares about her! Get over it. You're too old for such childishness; by now, you should have understood that you are _not_ the center of everyone else's universe. Their passion for something _besides_ you in no way diminishes their love for you. Honestly, you should have figured that out by now."

Ayame shakes her head slightly as tears continue to flow. "But the Digital World…It took you. And I don't want it to take Cody."

Hiroki sighs in exasperation. "The Digital World didn't _take_ me anywhere; I got shot by a robber because I was too busy looking behind me that I didn't see the one in front of me. Yes, I probably did pay a little too much attention to the Digital World when I was at home, but trust me, I loved you. You _know_ that. As for Cody…he has a destiny. That's part of what scares you, and what makes you so angry, right?"

She squeezes her eyes shut. "Yes. It's going to kill him; I can feel it every time he goes to…_that_ place."

"Yeah," says Hiroki, drawing out the word for a few seconds. "Disregarding the fact that he's come back every single time, did you ever stop to think that if he _didn't_ go out, you'd all probably have been dead a hundred times over? From that perspective, he's _delaying_ his inevitable death."

Her eyes shot open. "What do you mean, inevitable?"

Hiroki gave her that _you idiot_ look. "He's mortal, isn't he? So he _will_ die. If you've got a problem with _that_…well, I'd recommend a good psychiatrist."

Ayame subsides. Even so, she is quite disturbed. During all the years she had known him, Hiroki had never spoken to her like this.

"Didn't I say that I'm not Hiroki?"

It is becoming quite annoying, speaking to an entity that knows her every thought.

"You could just not think. Most people do that all their lives; they seem perfectly happy. Besides, thought is overrated, especially when you're desperately—" He stops suddenly, as though a faint sound just reached his ears. He cocks his head as his eyes scan the rubble around them, looking for the sound's source. Ayame looks also, not moving her head. She hears nothing.

"I think," says Hiroki, "it's time for me to go."

"What?" Ayame's eyes flash back to her husband.

"I'm leaving, hon. It's been nice talking to you; let's do it again sometime."

Her eyebrows furrow again. "You're a hallucination."

"Yes. Do you know what that means?"

Perplexed, she gives her head the tiniest shake.

"I am you. Everything I say and do is a product of your own mind. Therefore, everything I've told you is _what you believe_. Think on that, while you go off to never land.

"What are you—?"

Quite suddenly, she falls asleep.

On his ledge, Hiroki sighs, resigning himself to his fate. "Well, that was fun. Time to go, I guess." Silently, he fades away, leaving only a wisp of fog drifting on the air….

* * *

Author's Notes: Now that is my kind of chapter. I'm best at writing dialogue, and this chapter, though short, shows my abilities I hope. Of course, you readers may hate it. If so, tell me what I did wrong. REVIEW!! Anyway, no, that last paragraph was not just artistic license; there is a reason for everything I write (even if that reason is simply a desire to have a little fun). In any case, the next few chapters will _not_ feature our favorite DigiDestined kids or their Digimon; I'll be doing some backstory on some very important characters as well as following up on what I wrote here. I'll try to make the next few chapters longer than this measly four pages. I make no promises though. REEEEEVIIIIIIIEEEEEWWWWW!! Oh yes, please let me know if I got any of the details wrong, i.e. the name of Cody's mother or the manner of Hiroki Hida's death.

Let the shadow rise.


	5. Ch 4: Salvation

**Salvation**

_They say dreams are the windows of the soul—take a peek and you can see the inner workings, the nuts and bolts._

--Henry Bromel

_The dream began as a memory. Ayame sat in the waiting room, nervously wringing her hands. She was young; her feet did not reach the floor. She kept looking at the clock. She was not the only one; her father, sitting beside her in an identical pose, was as nervous, perhaps even more. He still had on most of his clothes from work, lacking only his sport coat. It still lay on the couch at home; he'd only had time to take off his coat and sink into a chair, sighing with exhaustion, before the hospital called. The conversation was brief and calm, so much that Ayame could not be sure what it was about, though she had had an idea. However, when Papa hung up, pandemonium erupted. She was busy throwing clothes in a bag, he was busy calling relatives, and the dog was busy wondering what in the world was going on. With all that craziness, it was a miracle they got out without forgetting their heads, much less a sport coat._

_Grandfather and Grandmother had met them at the hospital. Ayame had asked her father why Grandpa and Grandma weren't there, but then she'd remembered that they lived over in Kyoto, so she wasn't listening when her father told her they'd be there later. They had all gone in, and Papa talked to a lot of people, but Ayame hadn't listened. She was too excited by the elevator ride. Papa even let her push the buttons!_

_They'd gotten into the waiting room to find Mommy's doctor waiting for them. Papa had gone over to talk to him, but Ayame couldn't go with Papa; Grandfather and Grandmother took her over to the seats. Ayame's hearing was really good though. She could still hear most of what they said even though some of what they said was real weird. How did you take a section out of a 'c'? After a lot of weird talk, the doctor put his hand on Papa's shoulder and smiled at him, the kind of smile that was supposed to make Papa feel better. Papa gave the doctor a kind of half smile that turned back into that worried look. The doctor patted him on the shoulder and left. Papa just stood there for a minute, hanging his head in that way that told Ayame that he was thinking hard. After a few moments, he'd called Grandfather and Grandmother over to him and told them what the doctor said. Grandfather had gotten mad at Papa, talking about doing things 'the natural way,' whatever that meant. It was like Papa's conversation with the doctor: Ayame didn't understand most of it, but she knew it was very, very important, and so she listened. Papa didn't get angry at Grandfather, who was Mommy's Papa, not Papa's Papa. Instead, he just listened to Grandfather, and then told him how things were going to be. Grandfather got angry at that, but there was nothing he could do, so after huffing and puffing for a bit, he let Grandmother take his arm and gently lead him back to the chair. Papa came and sat by Ayame. She looked up at his face._

_"Is everything going to be okay, Papa? Is Mommy all right," she'd asked._

_Papa had looked down at her, giving her a tremulous smile. "Everything's fine, baby. Mommy's gonna be great."_

_He was lying. Ayame knew it the moment the words came past his lips. There were only two times when parents said that: late at night when you couldn't go to sleep because you were scared by the night demons, and when things were bad, and they only _hoped _things were going to be okay. Ayame had heard that kind of talk before, just before Great-Grandfather died. Papa had told her Great-Grandfather would be okay, that he'd get through it. He didn't. Papa had only hoped he would. Even so, Ayame hoped Mommy _would_ be great. She desperately wanted a brother or a sister. _

_They'd sat there for a long time, and were still sitting there. The nice ladies in long white coats walked by a lot. Every time they did, Papa would look up at them; his back would straighten, and he got an odd look in his eyes, like he was hoping for something and afraid of it at the same time. The nice ladies never stopped, though. Neither did the doctors. Whenever one of _those _walked by, Papa tensed up, all his muscles locking. Ayame had never seen anyone do that. She'd heard of people being scared stiff, but never actually seen it. Still, the doctors were like the nice ladies; they never stopped, and Papa relaxed when they left his sight. If someone had made Ayame tell the truth, she was bored. There weren't any television sets in the waiting room, and the only picture books they had were for adults and, thus, boring. She couldn't even talk to Papa or Grandfather or Grandmother as she normally could. They were all so anxious that they shushed her every time she tried to talk to them. She was about to go crazy, and she promised herself that she would take them all with her. Suddenly, one of the nice ladies in the long white coats looked at her for longer than a quick glance. She put on a sweet smile and walked over to Ayame's family. They all tensed up as she approached, but the lady only looked at Ayame. When she got there, she bent down so that her face was level with Ayame's face._

_"I bet you're simply bored to tears. Am I right?"_

_Ayame nodded shyly._

_The lady's smile got bigger. "Well we'll just have to do something about that won't we?" The lady stood up and went behind one of the counters. She fiddled with something; Ayame didn't know what it was since the lady's hands were out of sight. The lady came back around and Ayame's eyes widened, her mouth forming into a huge smile. The lady smiled right back at her and came to stand in front of Ayame._

_"Are those for me?" Ayame practically shivered with excitement._

_The lady nodded, and Ayame almost snatched the coloring book and crayons out of the lady's hand. It looked like someone had already colored in it some, but Ayame didn't care. She turned to Grandfather and Grandmother and said, "Look what the nice lady gave me!"_

_Grandmother leaned toward Ayame, a stern look on her face. "Ayame, say thank you to the nurse," she scolded._

_Slightly abashed, Ayame stood up and bowed, thanking the nurse, who smiled. "You are very welcome, Ayame."_

_Ayame sat back down, opened the book, and began coloring with a feverish intensity. She didn't see her Papa smile up at the nurse and mouth "thank you" as the woman left._

_For a good long while, Ayame was very happy, absorbed in her coloring. Her happiness even managed to infect her Papa and her grandparents, who each helped her color. They were interrupted by the arrival of Grandpa and Grandma. Things got rather hectic, but after ten minutes or so, everything settled back into the way it was before the arrival. Ayame continued coloring, heedless of everything going on around her. She tried paying attention to her family, she really did, but they weren't talking much, and everything they said was boring; Ayame wasn't interested in things like 'sticking to tradition,' 'modern methods,' 'complications,' or taking sections out of a c. So she colored, and had fun._

_Her first inkling of trouble came when her family all stood up at once. Looking up from her coloring, she saw Mommy's doctor walking toward them all, but he looked different. Instead of the nice tie and long white coat, he had on long blue clothes of some kind. His head was covered by some kind of white cap, the name of which Ayame didn't know. There were a few small red spots on his clothes; Ayame didn't want to think of what those were, so she didn't._

_Then he smiled. "Mr. Yakima, you have twins. A boy and a girl, both as healthy as can be. You can come see them now."_

_There was a stunned silence, and then the entire family started chattering like magpies. Swept up by their excitement and feeling her own, Ayame followed her Papa, who followed the doctor into the hospital room. She slapped her hands over her ears when she entered as the most unearthly wails reached her ears. After a moment, she became accustomed enough to the sound that she could remove her hands, but she still grimaced at the sound._

_"With cries like that, they _must _be healthy!" Ayame could barely hear Grandmother over her siblings' cries. Suddenly, she was buffeted by many legs as her family walked past her trying to get in a better position to see the babies. Ayame wasn't hurt at all, but she wanted to see Brother and Sister too!_

_"Papa? Papa!" He couldn't hear her. Brother and Sister were crying too loudly, and everyone else was making too much noise to hear her. Not to mention, they were all engrossed by the spectacle of the twins to notice her now._

_It was the first time Ayame had that feeling of abandonment. __But it was not the last.

* * *

_

_The dream shifted to another memory. Ayame lay in bed, desperately not wanting to get up. If she did, it would mean another day of hard, backbreaking labor, with no real thanks in the foreseeable future. She had never thought being a mother would be such hard work, but it was. Now she knew why Mother had advised her not to be one. Ayame had thought it was a joke. It wasn't._

_She heard a key being inserted into the lock. She didn't move; only three other people aside from her had a key, and she trusted all three implicitly. Of the three, only two could possibly be awake right now. Of those two, only one was not supposed to be at work right now._

_Chikara's footsteps were nearly silent, but in the stillness of the apartment, his steps were quite audible to Ayame's ears. The steps became louder and louder before stopping. Ayame would have bet every yen she had (which, at the time, wasn't saying much) that he'd stopped right in front of her room. She knew he could see the pillow she'd pressed into her face. No doubt he'd come to ruin her morning. She was right._

_"What are you doing asleep, girl? There're things to do, things to do! Times wasting away, get up, get up, or I'll do it for you!"_

_Ayame groaned and took the pillow off her face. Sitting up, she said, "Do you ever sleep?"_

_"Bah! You young people don't know the meaning of the word discipline anymore. Why, in my day—!"_

_"Yes, yes, you'd be awake two hours before dawn and have already run three miles, cooked breakfast, and done the morning chores." Ayame smiled. "How are you today, Chikara?"_

_He smiled back. "Oh, you know me; I'm in fine fettle, the same as ever. I've come to help you with little Iori today."_

_"What?" Ayame's brows furrowed. "Don't you have some students to knock over the head?"_

_"I decided to give them a break. I've learned that if you hit the student's heads too much, their brains turn to mush."_

_Ayame laughed. "You told me their brains were already mush."_

_"True, but mush is better than water."_

_Ayame shook her head. "Chikara, you are insane."_

_"Indeed," he said, nodding. "But in a good way. Now, you get out of that bed and clean yourself up. I'll take care of Iori."_

_"Just remember he needs—"_

_"Ayame, I've already raised three boys, I know what to do. You go get clean; I will handle Iori. Well, what are you waiting for?"_

_Ayame saluted before swinging her legs off the bed. Chikara returned the gesture and turned away, heading for the small kitchen. Ayame shook her head as she headed for her small bathroom. It wasn't right that a man Chikara's age should have that much energy._

_Her day went as it normally did, save that it was made much easier with Chikara's help. She cared for Iori, played with him, and generally acted like a housewife. He left around sundown, but his help had been so beneficial that Ayame still had quite a bit of energy left. She made dinner and ate, making sure to leave a plate for her husband. After playing with Iori for a while, she finally managed to get the little toddler into bed. Quite tired, she sank into the sofa._

_The door opened. "Ayame? Ayame, I'm home!"_

_Ayame didn't get up. She heard him come up behind her. His arms wrapped around her and he gave her a peck on the cheek. "So, my dear, how have things been today?"_

_"Not quite as tiring as usual. Your father came over to help with Iori. He got here at about five-thirty and basically threatened me with a pail of water if I didn't get up."_

_Hiroki sighed. "And here I was thinking he might change in his old age."_

_"No such luck."_

_"Well, at least he treats you better than he did us."_

_Ayame turned her head slightly. "How so?"_

_"If we weren't awake an hour before dawn, he wouldn't bother giving us any warning; he'd just dump water over us or tip the bed over."_

_"Hmm. Maybe Iori will mellow him out."_

_"We can only hope."_

_"How was work?"_

_Hiroki was silent for a moment, and then he slid his arms away from her. "We need to talk about that."_

_Ayame turned around. Hiroki was walking over to the little table they had. She got up from the couch and sat down beside him. Hiroki stared at the table._

_"What's wrong, honey?"_

_Hiroki remained silent for a time and then said, "You know I'm working on the Highton View Terrace case?"_

_"Yes, what about it?"_

_After yet another bout of silence, Hiroki said, "Ayame, I don't think it was a terrorist attack."_

_"What?"_

_"Look, the only eyewitnesses to what happened were some kids, and young kids at that; the oldest was only eight or so. Anyway, they said monsters were responsible."_

_"Hiroki, they're kids; they're letting their imaginations get away with them."_

_He shook his head. "I don't think so Ayame. Hear me out. The descriptions these kids gave me were all the same, so either they all got together and decided on the same story, or they all really did see some kind of monsters."_

_Ayame realized what he was getting at. "Hiroki, Digimon don't—"_

_"Ayame, listen to me! Two of the kids told me that one of the monsters was called Greymon, and that he had been both Koromon and Agumon. They described those Digimon perfectly, and there is no way they could know those names! None! And not only that, their description of the other monster fits the description of a Parrotmon perfectly."_

_"Hiroki, listen to me. I'll grant that something odd happened to you when you were young, but you told me yourself that Digimon couldn't come here anymore. Even if something like that did happen, who will ever believe you? There's no proof that there was anything more than an explosion at Highton View Terrace. You can't tell anyone about your Digimon, Hiroki. You'll sound insane. They'll lock you away."_

_Hiroki looked up at her. "You don't believe me either, do you?"_

_A fist grabbed Ayame's heart. "Honey, I—"_

_"No, you don't, I can tell." Hiroki stood up. "I'll prove it to you, Ayame. I will."_

_Hiroki walked away, over to Iori's room, and went in. Ayame heard a few whispered words, and then Hiroki came back out. He shut his son's door softly and came into the living room. He grabbed his coat and walked to the door. _

_"I'll be at my father's if you need me," he said, and left._

_Ayame looked at the door for a second, and then she lowered her face down to her arms. She let loose the tears, wondering if her husband was still sane._

_And more importantly, whether he would still be her husband come morning._

* * *

Ayame's dream ended quite abruptly. She looked around, saddened to find that she was still in a ruined building, still impaled on a rusty piece of metal. Then she heard voices. They were faint, muffled by the rubble around her. But they were voices.

"HELP! HELP ME, PLEASE," she cried.

The voices stopped. Everything was silent for a second, and Ayame's heart plummeted. It was nothing more than a delusion.

"_Is someone in there?_" The voice spoke in accented Japanese, and it sounded like the person was talking with a bullhorn.

"Yes! Yes, I'm in here! Help, please!"

"_Please remain calm. Are you injured?_"

Was she injured? Ayame looked herself over. Concussion, blood loss, broken right arm, starving, dehydrated, and, oh, the big metal thingy sticking out of her shoulder.

"Yes!"

_"Can you move?"_

"Would I still be here if I could?!"

She heard something come over the bullhorn that sounded suspiciously like a snort, and then the rubble in front of her began to shift. Something scraped and shifted, and after a few more seconds, a hole appeared. It was dark outside, but whoever had dug her out shined a light into her little prison. Someone muffled a curse.

"Ma'am, are you all right for the moment," a deep voice asked.

Ayame had never been so happy to hear another person's voice in her entire life. "Yes! Just help me get out of here."

Whoever was out there turned off the light, grabbed the edges of the hold, and began to pull. After a couple of minutes, the hole was large enough to walk through, and she could see her rescuers. In the light of their flashlights, she saw two police officers and one soldier. The soldier carried the bullhorn in his left hand, but the thing that most surprised her was that he was white, as in Caucasian. Her attention, however, focused more on the two police officers (both Japanese), one of whom carried a first aid kit. They knelt down beside her, looking at her wounds.

"Ma'am…I'm not sure what we can do to help you," said the one on her left, a large man with a deep voice. He was apparently the one who had cursed.

Ayame shook her head slightly. "I don't care what you have to do, just get me out of here."

"Corporal," he shouted, "we're going to need your help!"

"Ma'am," said the other officer, "can you tell us how extensive your injuries are? Beyond the obvious, I mean?" This officer was a woman with a soothing voice.

Ayame nodded slightly. "My right arm is broken, I think. That's the only big one, other than that," she said, nodding at the metal pylon.

The female officer swallowed when she looked at the thing. "Thank you, ma'am."

The soldier knelt beside her and started poking her right arm lightly.

"What are you doing," Ayame asked.

"Trying to find where the break is," he said. He was the one whose Japanese was accented.

Ayame gasped when his pokes reached her shoulder. The soldier nodded to himself and told Ayame to brace herself.

"For wha—AAAAHHHH!!" The soldier grabbed her arm and forcefully relocated her shoulder. Ayame felt like she had touched a bolt of lightning. The pain screamed down her shoulder and into her arm, inundating nerves in a sea of pain. Gradually the pain began to recede, but she was still somewhat distracted by it as the soldier told the two officers to take hold of her. They opposed him, saying she could die of blood loss if they removed her.

"She'll die for certain if we don't. Now do it!" They each grabbed hold of Ayame.

Finally, she realized through the pain what they were about to do, but before she could say anything, they pulled as hard as they could.

She blacked out.

When she came to, she found she was lying on the street a little way from the building in which she had been. She knew it was the same building because of the large hole that had been dug in the side. Had that not been there, she didn't think she would recognize _anything_. Everything around her was rubble. Some mighty force had leveled every building for as far as she could see.

"My God, what happened," she whispered.

The female officer, who was patching up her shoulder wound, said, "We're still not quite sure. We just know we don't want it to happen again."

"It looks like Hiroshima," Ayame whispered.

The female officer snorted. "If anything, its worse. As best we can tell, the explosion originated in Odaiba. Not surprising, really."

Ayame whipped her head around to look at the woman. "What do you mean by that?"

The officer flinched. "Nothing. Just that, with all the weird stuff that's happened over there, well…it just doesn't surprise me all that much."

Ayame subsided, and let the woman fix up her wound in relative silence.

"Did you live there?"

Ayame looked at the woman. "What?"

"Did you live in Odaiba?"

"Yes," said Ayame.

"I'm sorry." Things stayed that way for another minute until the officer pronounced herself 'done.' At that word, the soldier and the other officer came trotting out of the light fog that covered the area. The male officer knelt beside her. "Do you think you can walk, ma'am?"

Ayame nodded. "My arms are screwed up, not my legs."

"Humph." He helped pull her up and put her left arm around his shoulders to support her. She hissed in pain.

"Do we need to stop, ma'am?"

"No, I'm okay," Ayame said. "I'd rather you held this arm than my right one." _That_ arm still felt like needles were boring into it.

"We need to get out of here," the soldier said impatiently. "I'd bet anything that there'll be more of those things coming."

"What things?" asked Ayame.

"Those, uh, what do you call 'em? Digimon?"

That fist grabbed her heart again. "Let's go," she said.

They walked on, and the fog began to thin slightly, though it never left completely. The female officer looked at the soldier. "Is your radio still not working?"

"No. Damn thing won't even turn on."

The exchange roused Ayame's curiosity. "What's an American soldier doing in Tokyo?"

"Marine."

"What?"

"I'm a Marine," he told Ayame. "You only call people in the Army a soldier."

"Oh. Um, sorry. You still didn't answer my question."

He sighed. "Well, to put it bluntly, ma'am, we're the only organized military force still in Japan. We're mostly based in Okinawa, you know, so we weren't affected by the blast. The Ministry of Defense was based in Shinjuku, and from what we can tell, Shinjuku doesn't even exist anymore. It's been totally vaporized, along with the SDF's entire command structure. For now, the SDF is in chaos until they agree on a new leader. Most of us in Okinawa came up here to do what we could. I've heard that other countries are sending troops, but I don't know for sure."

"They won't be able to help you even if they do."

They all spun when they heard the crowing voice. A Digimon slowly walked out of the fog. Essentially a giant, golden metal rooster, Ayame had never seen a Digimon like it.

"Digimon," the soldier yelled, "are you allied with the DigiDestined children?"

"Oh no, little human. I serve the dark lord; I exist only to further his glory."

The soldier turned his head to the rest of them. "Get ready to run."

The giant rooster cackled. "You can't outrun me, stupid humans. I am Sinduramon; look upon me, and know that you are doomed."

The soldier opened fire; the bullets bounced off the bird's torso. The thing cackled again.

"Did you think you could so easily dispatch me? Let me show you real power! Positron Pulse!"

Golden bolts of electricity arced around Sinduramon's body. Sinduramon opened his wings and pointed them at the little group of humans. The electricity slowly congregated at the tips of his wings, and a huge bolt of lightning blasted from each wing. The bolts twisted and writhed around each other as they sped toward the humans.

Ayame closed her eyes and prepared to die.

* * *

Author's Notes: Well, that was different! I'm not used to writing what amounts to a character study. Anyway, hoped you liked it, and review, as always. The Odaiba DigiDestined will appear after the next chapter, I promise. They won't leave after that. Now, I'm going to do something that might be somewhat out of character for a fanfiction writer: if anyone has ideas on things that should or could happen in the story, or a direction the series as a whole should or could take, please use the private messaging system to email me your ideas. If you're not a member of , please leave me an email address where I can contact you. I promise, I won't sell your email address to some spam site, and, if your ideas are good enough, or, rather, work well enough with both myself and the story, I'll use them. If I don't use said ideas in this story, I'll use them in another story. Please make sure your ideas are reasonable though. I won't use them otherwise. Take note: this request does not mean I do not have any idea where this story and series are going; I do, I'd just like a few suggestions. Again, please, please review.

**_The shadow is risen, and it is growing._**


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